I was about to jump ship to Android. I ordered a Galaxy Note 2 and sent it back after just 2 days and less than 3 hours playing around with it. It's a quad core 1.7 GHz, 2 GB RAM device ... and it showed stutters and lag. Not much, not very often but it was there. This was the reason I left Android one year ago and I thought the today's hardware and project butter would have changed that. I was wrong. It wasn't horrible but even if I forget about the occational stutter - a side by side comparison with my Lumia 800, a single core 1.4 GHz, 0.5 GB device, revealed that Android on that hot high end device was not even close regarding smoothness and responsiveness. Especially revealing was the pinch to zoom in photos. The zoom effect on the Note 2 always was a little delayed. Not so much on the "old" Lumia 800, there it was like glued to my fingertip.

I'm now waiting for the Ativ S to be released in Germany and I'm happy to still be with you WP guys ;)

I know what you mean. Sitting side by side was my Lumia 920 next to a friends Galaxy S3. Absolutely no lag or stutter on my dual cored 1 GB of RAM 920, but obvious lag and stutter on his quad cored S3.
It should be obvious then that having these higher specced devices doesn't mean better performance.

Android has always been known for a laggy phone. Not usually from the start but after its been under use for a good 30-40 minutes continuously. Happens on single,dual,quad core phones so you know its an os issue.

It amazes me that people still put up with it and always want to get "another android phone" when their contract is up.

Yes I'm an android user and I may be biased, but I have had an HTC 8x before my note 2 and there was just a little stutter when I would move the home screen up and down. Don't get me wrong it was smooth but it just seemed a little too slow and not fast enough. Both of these devices are really smooth but let's all be honest here, they both exhibit fair amount of stutter.

Yes I'm an android user and I may be biased, but I have had an HTC 8x before my note 2 and there was just a little stutter when I would move the home screen up and down. Don't get me wrong it was smooth but it just seemed a little too slow and not fast enough. Both of these devices are really smooth but let's all be honest here, they both exhibit fair amount of stutter.

It wasn't really laggy by any means. It's just when you press on the screen and move your finger up and down, the frame rate seems to drop. However when you flick and scroll on the screen it is very smooth.

It wasn't really laggy by any means. It's just when you press on the screen and move your finger up and down, the frame rate seems to drop. However when you flick and scroll on the screen it is very smooth.

I can only compare to wp7.5. I have no clue about problems WP8 might have. On my lumia 800, fast scrolling the homescreen does not stutter - sometimes the tiles need an extra half a second to load the content but no lag or stutters (except when I plug in the phone at night before I go to bed. Seems like it's talking home to Nokia or MSFT or something).
If it turns out that WP8 on an Ativ S is laggy, I might reconsider the Note 2. Apart from the responsiveness I think it's a beast with more features than any phone should have ;) Something in my heart broke when I put it back into the box :( Damn 1st world problems!!

It wasn't really laggy by any means. It's just when you press on the screen and move your finger up and down, the frame rate seems to drop. However when you flick and scroll on the screen it is very smooth.

not a problem with Puremotion HD+ on 920 i think it has to do with the refresh rate of the screen

One thing I noticed on my old android and I had a flagship phone at the time is that is one hungry beast of an operating system. Come the end of my second year my phone was just slow and garbage. I rooted it and put a customer rom back on it once I got my WP8 and the phone was pretty decent again. The more you update an android phone it just seems to slowly suck the life out of it.

The last Android I owned was a Nexus S. Was laggy when I activated it and this didn't change when I passed it on to my now-wife half a year later (utterly frustrated). I really was hoping that this might have changed with the recent hardware, but no sir. It certainly helped but didn't solve the problem. In one review I read that this phone is finally as smooth as iOS or WP (this was even before the latest android updates). I believed it and you don't really notice much of a difference when flicking the homescreens or the app list. But as I wrote before, the gallery app is what really shows the performance. If you've only used android in your smartphone life it probably is okay or even good ... but not if you once had the opportunity to enjoy the smoothness of WP or iOS. The question is: does it matter to you? The phalanx of features of a high-end Android phone certainly is worth alot and could make up for some lag here and there. And lets be honest: every OS shows lag at times.

The last Android I owned was a Nexus S. Was laggy when I activated it and this didn't change when I passed it on to my now-wife half a year later (utterly frustrated). I really was hoping that this might have changed with the recent hardware, but no sir. It certainly helped but didn't solve the problem. In one review I read that this phone is finally as smooth as iOS or WP (this was even before the latest android updates). I believed it and you don't really notice much of a difference when flicking the homescreens or the app list. But as I wrote before, the gallery app is what really shows the performance. If you've only used android in your smartphone life it probably is okay or even good ... but not if you once had the opportunity to enjoy the smoothness of WP or iOS. The question is: does it matter to you? The phalanx of features of a high-end Android phone certainly is worth alot and could make up for some lag here and there. And lets be honest: every OS shows lag at times.

Actually the lag in the gallery app is only due to Samsung's touchwiz app. The stock gallery app on Android 4.2 jelly bean has no lag when running a nexus 4